by Lark Lane
“In the first place, we didn’t set you up. Brad did. I didn’t know he brought J.D. for you until he told me when we were dancing on the grass. And B, if you don’t have time for guys now, Nora, you never will. You’re the one setting yourself up—for a lonely life full of nothing but obligations.”
“Jeez. That was harsh.”
Was this a theme in my life? I’d heard something like that before, something Steve said. Always choosing between can’t and have to.
“Well, excuse me,” Lisa said, “but someone has to say it.” She stood up with her hands on her hips and went into full-blown righteous mode. “It’s time you had a little happiness in your life.”
I burst out laughing.
“I mean it!”
“Oh, Leese. What would I do without you?” I picked up my garbage bag and linked arms with her. “Come on. Let’s go check the coals and make some margaritas.”
Walking back to the house, we were both quiet. I was surprised by the optimism I felt, an extremely unfamiliar emotion. Part of me even hoped J.D. would show up Wednesday.
At the deck steps Lisa said, “Did you notice Brad left the party early? He didn’t even say goodbye.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I don’t think he wanted his broken heart to ruin your big night.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Are you blind? Brad’s been crazy about you since he joined the study group.”
“No way. I thought...” Her face paled a little. “I thought Brad was gay.”
“Why would you?”
“He doesn’t have a girlfriend, for one thing.”
“Well, he doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“But he never talks about women. At all.”
“Because you’re the one he wants,” I said.
“But…he never said anything.”
“Because Frank is always in the way!” I didn't mean that to sound as harsh as it did.
“And you’re on Brad’s side?”
“I’m on your side, silly,” I said. “I’m happy for you and Frank. He’s been in love with you forever. I’m sorry for Brad, but he’s late.”
“God, and I just texted him like everything was normal.” I could see the wheels turning in her head. She’d honestly had no clue.
Just then Frank’s white Volvo drove up near the side gate and Stacey jumped out from the passenger side. “I’m home!”
She’d cut her hair. And she’d changed—or the way I saw her changed. She wasn’t a kid at all. She rushed through the gate and threw her arms around me and Lisa.
“What have you done to your hair?” Lisa said.
“When did you get to be taller than me?” I said. I sounded just like my mom. I should have added kiddo to the question.
“Duh, like last year.” Stacey’s green eyes flashed with fun. She ran her black and white silk nails through the short dark brown curls. “You like?”
When she left last Wednesday her hair was long, down to the small of her back, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. Not like now. It was subtle, but she definitely had on a little shadow and blush, and red tinted gloss accented her full perfect lips.
“I love!” Lisa said. “You look gorgeous, sweetie!”
She did look gorgeous. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.
In fact, I realized with a shock, Stacey was the same age I was when we moved in here with Grandma. I’d considered myself an adult then. I’d resented Grandma’s constant clucking and worrying. Did Stacey feel the same way about me? Was I getting old without noticing it?
“The kid’s definitely been influenced by her ‘aunt’ Lisa.” Frank came through the gate carrying a load of shopping bags with Disney logos all over them. “This is only half of what was in the trunk.”
“Thanks, Frank.” Stacey followed him across the deck to the house. “I brought presents for everybody.”
I followed Frank and Stacey and stopped at the sliding glass door. “Leese, are you coming?”
She was at the bottom of the deck steps staring at her engagement ring. She looked awful, like she’d just realized she made a terrible mistake.
Chapter 13
BlueMagick World Headquarters, Folsom, California
“How do you love me now, J.D.?” Nicole said.
She raised one eyebrow and gave me her come-hither look. We’d gotten together on Monday and Tuesday, and now it seemed she wanted to go three for three. She laid her palm out flat in front of my chest, displaying a small black device.
“Wait a minute.” I picked it up. “That’s not the prototype.”
It was smaller than the one Brad showed me last week. This one felt heavier. More substantial.
“That’s Proto 2,” Nicole said. She retrieved the prototype lying on my desk. “Proto 1 didn’t have the sat uplink module installed. I’ll get it retrofitted so Brad will have a backup.” She dropped the original scanner into her lab coat pocket.
I knew she was working on the scanner design, but I didn’t know Brad had brought her in on the plans for the Barton dig. If Brad trusted Nicole, it was a good sign. All the better for BlueMagick if the two of them could get along.
She pulled out her hair picks. Her thick red curls fell down around her shoulders. Except for the color, for a split second it made me think of Nora. “Now tell me how much you love me.”
I might as well give Nicole the kudos she deserved. She was as brilliant at design execution as she was at speculative research. “BlueMagick is lucky to have you, Nic.”
“Meaning you love me like a friend,” she said. She took off her coat and laid it across my desk then fingered the top button on her blouse. “How do you feel about fucking your good friend today?” She undid her buttons, exposing her breasts. My cock responded accordingly.
Why not? I appreciated Brad’s concerns about a lawsuit, but this arrangement with Nicole was mutually beneficial. We were both sluts in this. Besides, if she sued, I’d just pay her off and be rid of her.
I put Proto 2 in my top drawer without taking my eyes off her fingers working her buttons. “Go on,” I said. Anything to drive away the thoughts of Nora.
Nora’s sweet dark eyes and long brown hair had even begun to invade my dreams. Every time I thought of her laughing at me at the end of her bed it made me smile. The memory of her trembling in my arms made me crazy with desire.
Nicole’s smile broadened as she let her shirt fall to the floor. Today it was a strapless black lace bra. It looked hot against her pale freckled skin. She was a smart, good-looking woman. What was she doing here?
“Three days in a row,” she said. She stepped out of her slacks to reveal matching lacy black panties. “This is a habit I don’t want to break.”
Her jabbering jarred against my nerves. I opened my jeans and pulled out my cock and moved around the desk to her. Suddenly I just wanted to get it over with.
“Yeah, big boy,” she said eagerly. “Let’s go.”
She sank to her knees in front of me. Her hot wet mouth surrounded my shaft, and I ran my hands through her hair and pressed her head close. She sucked, and I pumped against her face, but I wasn’t in the mood to go gentle. I pulled out and lifted her up.
“Turn around,” I said.
I bent her over the desk in front of me and spread her legs apart. I reached up from behind, and she cried out a little as I slid a finger over her clit. She was already hot and wet, and I spread her folds and rubbed her juices over her clit.
I had no interest in making love to Nicole. I needed something else from her. I needed to disappear and forget who I was, if only for the thirty second it took to finish myself off inside her. I tore open a condom and slipped it on then plunged into her, ramming her against the desk.
She arched her back against my chest, and I reached around and pulled her bra up until her breasts popped out. She pushed her butt up against me and made little groaning sounds. She was faking it, but I didn’t care. I rammed her again and buried my face in her hair.
<
br /> It smelled of rosemary and mint.
Nora. Instantly, I saw Nora’s wide, beautiful eyes before me. I pulled her hair to the side and kissed her neck and nibbled her ear. Oh, Nora. I pulled out and turned her over, easing her up onto on the desk on her back. I crawled over her and kissed her mouth, her throat, and moved down to her belly, to the sweet hairs below, and found her clit.
I sucked her clit and prodded her inside with one hand while I fingered a nipple with the other. She moved with my movements. She was an instrument, and I was the musician who made her strings vibrate. I left her clit and moved up to her breast, taking a nipple between my teeth. I sucked, and she moaned and spread her legs apart. I guided myself inside her.
I drove into her and made her shudder with every thrust. I pounded myself into her. I wanted to obliterate the walls between us. “Nora,” I whispered and shuddered and lost myself inside her. “Nora.”
I collapsed in her arms.
“Who the hell is Nora?”
Oh. Fuck.
“You asshole.” Nicole pushed me off and twisted out from under me.
“Shit, Nicole. I am so sorry.”
She pulled her clothes back on. “You’re going to be sorry.” She stormed off. She stopped at the office door and looked at me, shaking her head. “You really are an asshole, J.D.”
“I can’t deny it.” I raised my hands in surrender.
She slammed the door behind her, and I went to my bathroom to clean up. I had the feeling we weren’t fuck buddies anymore.
These last three days had been a mistake with Nicole. I had wanted to blot out thoughts of Nora, but I was kidding myself thinking Nicole was safe. She’d obviously developed feelings about our relationship. Not love. Holly-type feelings. You’re going to be sorry. Yeah. I’d better tell my lawyer to get out the checkbook.
Shit, Nicole was right. I was an asshole.
When I came out, Brad was in the office standing next to a woman’s street bike and holding a black Giro Aeon helmet. “I passed Nicole on my way in,” he said. “Ouch.”
“She look mad?”
“Well, she wasn’t exactly singing I’m Walking On Sunshine.”
“Yeah, my bad,” I said.
“You’re courting disaster there, my friend.”
“I know, I know. It’s over. I mean it,” I said. “Why do you have a woman’s bike in my office?”
“It’s Stacey’s present,” he said. “For riding around campus. Birthday dinner tonight, remember?”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why go, dude? Why torture yourself?”
“Because I told her I would,” he said. “And because we might learn something more about Steve Heron’s plans.”
I wanted to see Nora, but I’d fucked everything up. I had no idea how to have a real relationship, but I was pretty sure lying about who I am wasn’t the best first step.
“I didn’t get the kid a present,” I said.
Brad handed me the helmet. “You can give her this.”
Chapter 14
The minute I turned onto the campus, I realized I’d be early for my meeting with Steve. I had forgotten the parking lots would be relatively empty since the semester had ended.
I pulled my mom’s red Altima into a space near the bookstore. The car was new when she bought it, but now it was almost ten years old. Even with regular maintenance, it had reached the point where things kept breaking. Last week, the air conditioner went out.
It was hot, even for the first week in June. Every year it seemed the heat came sooner and lasted longer. As I paid for an iced latte at the Union, I spotted Steve outside through the window. He was talking to someone at a table in the courtyard. His back was to me, but his cropped black hair and disciplined straight posture were unmistakable.
I felt a twinge of irritation to see him interviewing someone else. I thought the job was already mine. It was tacky of me, I admit it, but I went out and sat at a table behind him, close enough to overhear the conversation.
The girl he was talking to looked a couple of years older than me. She wore a white lab coat and had gorgeous curly red hair stuck on top of her head with a pencil. Great idea. I could feel the sweat on my neck. I looked through my bag for a scrunchie to put my hair up in a ponytail.
“You did well,” Steve said to her, punching something into an iPad. “Your payment’s been transferred to your account.”
“Good.” The girl checked her own tablet. “I’m out of there. I’m never going back.”
“Oh, no, Nicole. You’re not finished yet,” Steve said pleasantly. “We need you to make sure the lab analysis goes the right way.”
“I won’t stay there. I can’t. It’s too humiliating.”
“You stay until we tell you to go.” Steve’s voice turned cold as ice, sending a chill up my spine, and Nicole’s eyes widened, as if his tone shocked her too.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear this. I got up quietly and went back into the Student Union, holding my breath all the way. I watched through the window until Nicole left.
I went outside again, and Steve greeted me with that million dollar smile—I should say $150,000 smile.
“Hi, Nora,” he said. “Ready to be briefed?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure—”
“Maybe this will help.” He handed me an envelope. “I convinced my superiors you deserved a gesture of good faith. Take a look.”
The envelope held a check made out to me. “$50,000. You’re joking,” I said. “This can’t be legal.”
“Look closer,” Steve said. “Would that information be on the check if it was illegal?”
It was a MolyMo Corporation check. In the remittance advice, it said Barton Dig Scholarship. I’d never heard of MolyMo Corporation, but that didn’t mean anything.
“We call it a scholarship so we can write it off. Call it a signing bonus,” he said. “Of course it comes out of your other bonus if you find what we’re looking for.”
“And if I don’t find what you’re looking for?”
“Keep it for your trouble—and your loans paid off too. We won’t forget.”
“What are you looking for?” I said. “And what makes you think I even know how to find whatever it is?”
“This.” He picked up an electronic device sitting on the table. It fit in the palm of his hand. “You stick this probe end into the dirt at four different places in the tunnel at Dr. Barton’s dig. While it’s set, push each of these four buttons. Twenty seconds each. That’s it. Meet me here in three weeks with the scanner, and you’re done.”
“Dirt,” I said. “You want to test the dirt?”
“What did you think?” He burst out laughing. “It was some terrorist plot? Not that exciting. We’re looking for what are called rare earth elements—though they’re actually minerals. It’s boring stuff, but the world turns on boring things more than people realize. These minerals are worth a fortune to those who know how to use them. What my company is paying you is nothing compared to their big picture.”
“Wow, it’s so small.” I turned the device over in my hand. “It sounds too easy.”
“It is.” Steve stood up. “Look, Nora. It’s no big mystery. You just got lucky. In the right place at the right time. Enjoy it.”
I looked at the envelope in my other hand.
“Deposit the check today,” Steve said. “It’s yours. Just remember, no one can know about this. Not even Dr. Barton. He’s afraid of companies like mine. He thinks we’ll desecrate sacred ground. I hope you can see that’s not the case.”
“But won’t you destroy the dig eventually if the minerals you want are there?”
“Not at all! There are new extraction techniques for selective targeting. If we do find what we’re looking for, the grant money Barton receives will fund his work for the rest of his life and beyond. You’ll be a hero. This is an everybody-wins scenario.”
He made it sound so good, but as I watched him walk away I felt like some
thing was off. He was mean to that red-haired girl, Nicole. She seemed afraid of him, but I couldn’t know. Maybe she made a deal with MolyMo, like I had, and Steve was just making sure she kept her part of the bargain.
And of course he was right. There was nothing illegal about testing dirt.
I put the envelope and scanner in my bag and headed for my car. Stacey’s dinner was in a couple of hours, and I still had to pick up the cake. I put the windows down in the car, thinking of that check in my bag. If I wanted to, tomorrow I could go buy a car with working air conditioning. It seemed like a dream.
I pulled onto Highway 50, and it hit me once again: Stacey was eighteen. We were free of Child Family Services. As Lisa put it, I could think of my own happiness now. If I was willing to work for it, there was a future available for me not filled with pain and fear and worry.
“Foresthill!” I screamed at the steering wheel. “Foresthill! Foresthill!”
No monsters here.
I was going to beat this thing. I’d wait until tomorrow to deposit Steve’s check. Now I wanted to pick up the cake, get home, and take a shower and wash my hair. I took the Auburn-Folsom exit from Highway 50, and as I passed the roadside billboard for BlueMagick I remembered that Lisa told Brad to bring J.D. tonight. My stomach got all fluttery, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
I stopped at the Raley’s bakery and bought a couple small bags of ice to pack around the cake box so the icing wouldn’t slide off on the short drive home. Yesterday, this would have depressed me. With $50,000 in my bag, it was a funny anecdote.
As I expected, no one was home. Today was Stacey’s first day at the restaurant, and Lisa was training her during a lunch shift. I put the cake on the kitchen counter and went to take a shower. It felt so good to wash off the sweat from driving in the hot car. I shampooed my hair, rinsed it, and lathered it up again and rinsed, then put conditioner in and left it piled on my head. I soaped up my body and turned the water temperature to lukewarm and ran the spray over my skin with the hand-held showerhead.
I closed my eyes and let the water run over my breasts, imagining what it would be like if J.D. stepped in with me. I’d lean back against his chest and feel his arms around my shoulders, his hands on my breasts teasing my nipples. I aimed the water spray between my legs and set it to pulse.
